Bawdy Ballads & Dirty Ditties of the Wartime RAF

Woodfield Publishing Ltd

ISBN 1-873203-69-1

humour

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Publisher's warning: Some of the items in this collection are very rude indeed and may come as a shock to the uninitiated but in the interests of historical accuracy we have elected to reproduce them completely uncensored.

As Harold says, "they are not for the frail, the fraightfully posh or 'proper' gals" so if you are likely to be offended by profane language and sexual innuendo, this book is definitely not for you.

Those with a more robust sense of humour can feel free to enjoy it in the nostalgic spirit in which it is intended.

Harold Bennett (ed)
An unashamedly politically incorrect celebration of the ribald humour of RAF airmen during the Second World War

Every time they took to the air during the Second World War, the aircrews of the Royal Air Force faced the possibility that they might not return and, perhaps unsurprisingly, they earned a reputation for 'letting off steam' in their off-duty hours.

When enjoying a get-togeher in the mess or a local pub, one of their favourite ways to unwind was a sing-song around the piano. Many World War II airmen had a 'party piece' with which to entertain their comrades and would take it in turns to lead the singing. Inevitably, as the alcohol took its toll, the repertoire would become progressively more risque. Favourites included lewd adaptations of well-known traditional or popular songs, pornographic parodies of famous poems and special RAF verses appended to military singalongs such as 'The Quartermaster's Stores'.

Former World War Two pilot and flying instructor Harold Bennett sent out a request to fellow members of the Aircrew Association asking them to trawl their collective memory for all the examples of RAF-related bawdy ballads and dirty ditties they could recall. The response was overwhelming and Harold then set about the task of compiling the wealth of material they had sent him. The result is this splendid collection, which preserves over 300 of the wartime RAF's favourite bawdy ballads and dirty ditties for posterity.

Here are some of the rhymes included:

504 Auxiliary Squadron | Aircrew Cadets' Lament | Aircrew Chum | The Airman's Prayer | The Alderman's Daughters | Anti-War Panacea | Arse-End Charlie | B Flight | Belting Down the Runway | Bengal Blues | The Benghazi Mail Run | Bless 'em All | Blinded by Shit | The Bloody Great Wheel | Bloody Hell | The Bold Aviator | The Briefing | Call up Blues | The Chastity Belt | Chin Chin Chinaman | Come on and Join | Come on Boys | Craven A | D-Day Dodgers | Deadeye Dick (Again) | Dirge of 849 | Do Your Balls Hang Low? | Down by the Barrack Gate | Dual Control | The Duchess of Lee | Durex is a Girl's Best Friend | Fairey! Fairey! | Fifty-One Squadron | Foggy Foggy Dew | For Johnny (1942) | Forty Thousand Fortresses | Good Old Beer | Group HQ | I Don't Want to Join the Air Force | I Haven't Seen Old Hitler | I Owe Me Darlin' | I Took My Wife For A Scramble | I've Got Sixpence | In Matruh | In Mobile | In the Violet Time | It's Foolish But It's Fun | Kiss Me Goodnight Sergeant Major | Lady Astor's Speech | Long Strong Black Pudding | The Modern Meteorologist | Mr Pupil and Mr Instructor | North Atlantic Squadron | An Old-Fashioned Hali | An Old-Fashioned Wimpey | One of the Few | Ops In A Whitley | Ops In A Wimpey | Our Flight Sergeant | Pacific Lament | Passengers will please refrain... | Scapa Flow | The Second Oldest Profession | Shaibah Blues | She had to go and Lose it at the Astor | She Was Poor But She Was Honest | She Went for a Ride in a Morgan | Single-Engined Basket | Song Of The Gremlins | Spitfire Story | The Story of P/O Prune | Thanks for the Memory | The Fucking Thing Was Ours! | There's A Home For Batchy Airmen | There's no AMO about Love | They Say There's an Airplane Just Leaving | These Foolish Things | The Valley of the Ruhr | A Waaf's Lament | We are the Air Sea Rescue | We are the Heavy Bombers | We are the Royal Air Force | When this Bloody War is Over | The Whiffenpoof Song | A Yorkshire Airfield | You go to Hamburg and I'll go to Essen and many more...